By Glynn Wilson –
Forget all the hype and mainstream media coverage that has the presidential race in a virtual dead heat with 100 days to go. Electoral college projections from an aggregation of polling show President Barack Obama winning re-election in a landslide. The incumbent president is now leading with 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206. It takes 270 to win.
You can see from this map (click on it) that the close states where the main battlegrounds lie are Colorado, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and North Carolina. In the big states with lots of electoral votes, Obama will carry California and New York, Romney will carry Texas, and Florida is still in play, although Obama is leading.
Even the latest Gallup poll shows Obama leading in the national popular vote by a 5 point margin, 48 percent to 43 percent, in a poll with a large enough sample size to have a very small 2 percent margin of error.
On almost a daily basis, the Associated Press is running stories with headlines and ledes talking about a tight race and such. Perhaps the AP does not have the personnel anymore with the expertise to analyze public opinion polls, or maybe in their never-ending drive to appear to be “balanced and fair,” they want Republican readers to think they have a chance — or they don’t want to discourage Democrats from getting out to vote on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, Tuesday, November 6, 2012.
While there is still a chance that international or domestic events could change the picture on the electoral map, including the economy, even the AP admits the race has remained “static” for months, as opposed to “dynamic,” so voter preferences are largely set based on historic party affiliations and what voters already know about the candidates, the policies and what direction they would take the country.
It is true that President Obama does not have the groundswell of upheaval going for him that he had in 2008, when the country was ready to elect anybody but another Bush-like Republican. Many on the hard core left indicate they are disgruntled with the job he has done.
Although those who really keep up with what has gone on over the past four years realize that it is the tea party Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives that have blocked every policy proposal and law change the president has put forward to solve some of toughest problems, especially the economic problems caused by the laissez faire approach to government by the Republicans under Bush-Cheney.
What really matters is how non-party affiliated, self-identified independents will vote in November. The latest Gallup polls show Obama leading significantly among independent voters.
So don’t despair Democrats or get too cocky Republicans. Unless something major happens to change the picture, President Obama looks almost sure to win re-election.
Originally published on July 28, 2012 in The Locust Fork News-Journal
